


Malaya

by Ren (halfpick)



Category: Log Horizon, Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, MMORPGs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28214304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfpick/pseuds/Ren
Summary: Adventurers Sinag Tala and Ms. Randyr cross paths unexpectedly in the world of Malaya - the Philippine server of the game Siege of Realms Online.
Relationships: n/a
Kudos: 1





	Malaya

**Author's Note:**

> *Originally written 04 Feb 2014*
> 
> Though loosely based on the Manga and Anime titles _Sword Art Online_ and _Log Horizon_ , this work of fiction was not written to coincide with either of their universes, timelines or realities. Any semblance may be influenced by the source materials, but are written solely from the author's own imagination.

I share everyone else’s loathing for Mondays. You peel yourself off from bed and drag yourself to prep for the day – which is all for naught as eventually, one way or another, it turns awful anyway. You man your desk, check your mails and messages, tick off tasks from your never-ending to-do list, and answer to your menacing boss’s every beck and call. All these you survive only because of the brief moments of Caramel Macchiato in between. The rest of the week feels like plowing through a barren wasteland – everything seems pointless. 

How can I be exactly where I’m supposed to be, and yet feel so out of place?

Everything changes by the time one survives the long Thursdays, until the abrupt Fridays arrive. You can feel the shift of the energies; you smell it in the afternoon air. There’s an ambient, even cosmic force that propels you to burst through the office doors and out to the open world. 

That’s for most people. As for me, I go home, boot up my lappy and log in. 

_Sinag Tala has logged in._

Malaya is the Philippine map of the worldwide Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game _Siege of Realms Online_ , which is more popularly known as _SoRO_. Each country has its own national territory and once people log in, they see their own environment transformed into a facet of the make-believe setting. Chinese players fight dragons along the Great Wall, English gamers swing swords atop the London Eye, and so on. One can even set up a base of operations (or a home if you have a non-fighting character) where their real-life house is built, relative to the rest of the places in the national map. In other words, the busy streets of the Makati CBD turn into a battlefield of knights and beasts in this fantastic reality.

Sinag Tala is my character. He is a mage-type caster capable of devastating ranged attacks and nifty, albeit limited supportive spells. I’ve invested quite a lot on making him strong enough to hold his own, and I’m quite proud to say that very few in the entire Malaya population can beat him in a PvP (player versus player) match. 

I joined a small guild of SoRO enthusiasts – _Bagamundo_ (lit. vagabond). It was a rule to use names that were distinctly Filipino in Malaya, but some less serious (make that obnoxious) players took this to all-time lows with names like _Bicho2x, mH@yu M3eh, JiozNgKhidlatt_. Dear Lord. So in forming parties, one of my standards is that the characters must be decently-named. Our Guild Master, Datu Siklab, is a warrior-type character who’s an expert in close-ranged combat and gifted with the speed attribute. Meanwhile his second-in-command, Lakan Gadya, is our powerhouse tank who has an HP gauge (or in-game life bar) that rarely goes below eighty-five percent, even in boss raids. They’ve been my most trusted allies since I started the game three years ago.

 _Lakan Gadya has logged in._  
_Datu Siklab has logged in._  
Datu Siklab: yo! i thought youd be late  
Sinag Tala: A wizard is never late.  
Lakan Gadya: yo! i thought youd be late –> says the last one to log in  
Datu Siklab: stfu dumbo

I’ve not met either of them, or any of our guild mates, in real life. I don’t even know what their real names are. As a rule of thumb, I never give out any personal information to anyone in-game. I guess I’m just cautious that my boring existence outside the game would jeopardize Sinag Tala’s bad-assness. 

On Friday nights, the three of us would usually venture out into parts of the Malaya map that we hadn’t explored, but tonight we’re taking it slow. We’re looking for water faeries along what would be a derelict Roxas Boulevard facing a great body of water akin to the Manila Bay. The quest was to fetch a water faerie’s tear and bring it back to Isko, a non-playable character who is an alchemist located somewhere in the virtual Diliman area. He’s supposed to give us a rare item after the quest is done.

Tracking these faeries down is a very grueling task as they are very rare creatures. Maybe one or two show up in the entire area within a day. Apart from that, the whole stretch was littered with mobs of aggressive demi-human sea-dwelling monsters. It was going to be a long night.

I was minding my own business, summoning gusts of wind to sweep my foes off their feet, when my attention was caught by a flash of lightning from the other side of the bay. Either someone was also hunting for faeries, or a boss monster had appeared. My two comrades were still occupied with the mobs so I decided to do a little recon on my own. 

Reaching higher ground, I watched from a safe distance as an Ishtar, another mage-type character, did away with the mermen with remarkable ease. Ishtars are of European origin, so I knew she was not from around – clad in gray Hestian armor, long silver hair and pale skin; her avatar’s definitely foreign. She used very intricate lightning spells that I’d never seen done quite the same way before. And her name is also nowhere near Filipino – _Ms. Randyr_.

I waited until she’d collected all the monster loots before I approached her.

Sinag Tala: Hello there. On a quest, too?  
Ms. Randyr: No, not really  
Ms. Randyr: I am looking for the nearest port  
Ms. Randyr: I’ve been wandering for hours >_<  
Sinag Tala: I suppose  
Sinag Tala: What are you doing so far away from home?  
Ms. Randyr: I fell into an Exilus warp and ended up here  
Ms. Randyr: It’s really disorienting XD  
Sinag Tala: But you’re really quite strong. I’ve never seen spells like yours before.  
Ms. Randyr: Tell you what  
Ms. Randyr: I can teach you my spells if you’d help me get around  
Ms. Randyr: Im just so bad at finding my way. Pls?  
Sinag Tala: Ok  
Sinag Tala: That’s no prob.  
Ms. Randyr: ^____^  
Ms. Randyr is offering to trade  
_You received Ms. Randyr’s Spellbook (1)_  
Sinag Tala: Hey, thanks!  
Ms. Randyr: My name is Elise :)

I stopped at my tracks typing. It was the first time someone initiated an introduction beyond aliases.

Sinag Tala: I’m Pol.

Wow. I can’t believe I just did that.

I was going to take Datu and Lakan along, but they said they were hell-bent on getting that rare item and that I could come back after I’ve taken Elise to the port. 

Ms. Randyr: So how do you get around here  
Ms. Randyr: ?  
Ms. Randyr: Do you also have pegasi? Basker hounds?  
Sinag Tala: None of those  
Sinag Tala: Kalesas are carriages, pulled by fire or storm steeds  
Sinag Tala: There are also the crusted oxen  
Sinag Tala: and the less rambunctious kalabaws  
Sinag Tala: Warp portals are very scarce  
Sinag Tala: so most of us travel on foot  
Sinag Tala: On the bright side, no exilus warps  
Ms. Randyr: That’s a relief  
Ms. Randyr: LOL  
Ms. Randyr: I was completing this ascension quest  
Ms. Randyr: for Ishtars  
Ms. Randyr: When all of a sudden I got warped away >_<  
Sinag Tala: This would be faster if I had a kalesa  
Sinag Tala: Really sorry  
Ms. Randyr: Oh no, it’s okay  
Ms. Randyr: I should be the one apologising  
Ms. Randyr: I imposed :3

But it wasn’t really an imposition. In fact, it seemed that I was getting more from the deal than I bargained for. She asked about the most random things- local Malaya quests, rare items, monsters. Then she compared everything to what she’s been used to back where she’s from. Call it a stroke of disguised good fortune, but what I’ve learned from her about foreign maps in forty-five minutes is more valuable than all the hearsays I’ve ever heard. We also got to use conjunctive spells that are twice as wicked and more visually appealing. What has amazed me most of all is that she never brought up or asked anything about our lives outside SoRO. 

Maybe it’s the novelty of being in the company of a high-level caster who’s not trying to best me, maybe it’s the unfamiliar, yet magnificently powerful enchantments, or just the fact that she’s just as fiercely passionate about SoRO as I am – but I felt drawn to Ms. Randyr, to Elise, more and more.

We’ve only clocked in about three hours together and I’ve caught myself drifting a little every now and then thinking about what it’d be like if we... 

*sigh* 

Who am I kidding?

Of course, being physically on the other side of the world, it would still be daytime where she is. But I never needed to fight off sleep because our conversations and quips filled the breaks between blasting and bolting every sodden evil creature that’d dare stand in our way. 

As the urgency of getting to the port gradually waned, we found ourselves moseying over to some places in the greater Malaya Manila area- I took her to the site of my real-world office, which in this reality is a butcher shop (how apt), and our guild’s appointed rendezvous point for emergency meetings (this part I left out, as it is a guild-guarded secret). Intramuros stands as a fort still, and is a point of convergence for the strongest guilds at times of sieges and SoRO events. 

In the Quiapo church’s place stands a grand cathedral where priest-class characters acquire their skills and answer their calling. Elise was impressed by its façade that stood out among the rest of the rustic structures surrounding it. We walked in and received buffs that should last us for the rest of our journey. We’re going to need it.

There is a boss monster that guards the skyway to the port as a final part for the overseas quest. All locals who would like to travel outside of the Malaya map will have to gather quest items that are almost too overwhelming to complete. And then they have to face off with the gatekeeper of the port: a humongous monster called the _Tikbalang_ which is one of the strongest boss monsters in the whole map. It has five life gauges of five hundred million hit points each, and replenishes its health by ten percent every three minutes. So the key is to use very powerful attacks in rapid succession. That, and superb evasive maneuvering to not be KOed in one hit. 

Since Ms. Randyr isn’t a native of Malaya, she can forego the quest items as requirements. However, she still needs to get through the boss monster in order to make it to the port.

I was bathed in confidence knowing that with my new set of spells, there was already more than just a morsel of hope in finishing this daunting task. Plus, Ms. Randyr isn’t the damsel-in-distress type at all. 

We couldn’t resist the cliché so before we engaged the boss monster, we stood a good distance from it, avatars side by side, and let the graphically enhanced fog clear. The Tikbalang’s gleaming red eyes shone from the end of the skyway as my speakers deluged my room with an abysmal chord succession. This is it, dagnammit. This is it. 

The next scenes made my screen seemingly shake as a barrage of fire-based magic lit every pixel of it. We were casting and trying to avoid perilous damage from the boss monsters’ assaults at the same time, but this became unproblematic with a very capable partner. Our moves were so in-sync, that there were no gaps between my casting and hers. We brought the Tikbalang’s HP down to its last bar in no time.

Inevitably, we had to take some hits, but because we didn’t lack supportive spells, we were able to manage not to be redzoned (or have our life bar drop below 20%). By the time the Tikbalang was down to its last few hundred million hit points, we unleashed our most powerful double act- a unison raid that eradicated the monster completely. It cost us quite a bit of our life force and magic reserves, so we needed a few minutes to recuperate and catch our breath, so to speak.

The loots were pretty impressive: An armored hide, a few rare gems, an expensive cigar, and a pass for the port which I handed over to Ms. Randyr.

It was a bittersweet feeling that I knew our journey together was coming to a close.

Ms. Randyr: OMG we did it!!!  
Sinag Tala: /gg  
Sinag Tala: Couldn’t have done it without you  
Sinag Tala: Thanks :)  
Ms. Randyr: No... THANK YOU. :*  
Ms. Randyr: You know... I had a really awesome time  
Ms. Randyr: You’re really amazing :3  
Sinag Tala: You too  
Sinag Tala: This is the best game night I’ve ever had  
Ms. Randyr: Listen...  
Sinag Tala: ?  
Ms. Randyr: I don’t know if I’ll encounter that exilus warp again  
Ms. Randyr: And we both know I don’t stand a chance  
Ms. Randyr: against our own gatekeeper back home  
Ms. Randyr: So... maybe I could stay a little longer?  
Ms, Randyr: Whaddyathink?

…

I felt my cheeks heat up and stretch as a smile pushed them consequently with glee. I let out an unmistakeable yelp. But Sinag Tala won’t be caught dead doing that, so instead-

Sinag Tala: You could’ve told me that before we were almost killed  
Sinag Tala: by that enormous horse-faced monster lol  
Sinag Tala: But that would be great :)  
Ms. Randyr: ^_____^  
Sinag Tala: Maybe you can help me with a quest  
Ms. Randyr: Sure! I’m up for it.  
Ms. Randyr: Which one?  
Sinag Tala: The one I need so I can travel overseas :p  
Sinag Tala: so I can take you home  
Ms. Randyr: Sounds like a plan. :)))  
Ms. Randyr: Let’s start tomorrow?  
Sinag Tala: Sure. Same time?  
Ms. Randyr: It’s a date. :)  
Sinag Tala: See you then.  
Ms. Randyr: ttyl  
_Ms. Randyr has logged out._

Oh crap, it’s 7:40AM. I’d been up all night, but I don’t feel tired at all. I’m just really...

“Ate Apple!!! Breakfast!”

...famished.

“All right! Be right there!”

I logged out, shut down the lappy and hurried down for what smelled like fried rice, beef tapa and scrambled eggs. And coffee. Must have coffee.


End file.
